Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data, being developed by the 3GPP. LTE is characterized by increased capacity and speed of wireless data networks. The network architecture is an Internet Protocol (IP)-based system with significantly reduced transfer latency compared to earlier technology.
Wireless local area network (WLAN) technology based on the IEEE 802.11™ family of standards is widely implemented. There is a drive to integrate aspects of WLAN technology with LTE, so that the existing WLAN technology can be subject to a large scale re-use, while benefiting from the core networks to which LTE devices connect.